Bronze Head Oval Sedge

The distinction between Carex foenea and C. argyrantha has been obscured by emphasis on the presence or absence of veination on the adaxial face of the perigynium. In C. foenea, the adaxial face is typically veinless or has a few veins not reaching the middle of the body, though at times the adaxial veins are about as strong as those of C. argyrantha. However, the veins of C. argyrantha appear ± straight and parallel to each other compared to the curving veins of C. foenea. In addition to characters cited in the key, C. foenea has more spreading perigynia and, at maturity, strongly brown-colored pistillate scales and perigynia. The name C. foenea has been applied often in recent literature to C. siccata, a very different species with long-creeping rhizomes.

Plants densely cespitose. Culms 20–120 cm. Leaves: sheaths adaxially white-hyaline or green-and-white mottled, papillose, summits U-shaped, shortly prolonged beyond collar; distal ligules 2–3 mm; blades 3–6 per fertile culm, green, without auricles, 8–30 cm × 2–4 mm, pliable. Inflorescences open, usually with widely spaced spikes, flexible, brown or greenish brown, 1.5–8 cm × 7–15 mm; proximal internode 5–25 mm; 2d internode 4–12 mm; proximal bracts scalelike, sometimes bristlelike to 1 cm. Spikes 3–7(–11), usually distant, oblong to ellipsoid, 7–25 × 5–7 mm, base clavate to attenuate, apex usually rounded. Pistillate scales usually reddish brown, or green or gold in shade forms, with 3-veined green or brown midstripe, ovate, 4–5 mm, equaling, ± covering perigynia, apex acute to acuminate. Perigynia erect-ascending, green or brown, conspicuously 4–9-veined abaxially, veinless or conspicuously unequally 4–8-veined adaxially, ovate, plano-convex or concavo-convex, 3.3–5 × (1.5–)1.7–2.5 mm, 0.6–0.8 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 0.2–0.4 mm wide, smooth or ciliate-serrulate at least on distal body; beak white or brown, white margin at tip, flat, ± ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture inconspicuous or with white margin, distance from beak tip to achene (1.4–)1.7–2.5 mm. Achenes dark brown at maturity, ovoid-orbicular, 1.3–2.1 × 1.2–1.7 mm, 0.5–0.6 mm thick, 1–1.4(–1.5) times as long as wide. 2n = 82, 84.

Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Conn., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mont., N.H., N.Y., N.Dak., Pa., R.I., S.Dak., Vt., Wis.

Fruiting late spring–early summer.

Dry to moist, acidic sands, gravels, open disturbed places, grasslands, open woods; 10–1000m.

Carex aenea Fernald

Carex aenea Kcrnald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 480. 1902
Carex slraminea var. minor Dewey, Am. Jour. ,Sci. 11: 318. 1826. (Type locality not given, but
undoubtedly western Mu.ssachusctts, where the author resided.) "Carex adusia" B<H>tt, 111. Carex 1 19, in part. pi. 380. 1862. Not C. adusta Boott, 1839. Carex tentra i. erecia Olney, Car. Bor. -Am. 3. 1871. (Based on C. slraminea var. minor Dewey.) Carex albolulescens var. sparsiftora Olney, Caric. Bor. -Am. 10, name only. 1 87 1. (Type from Kent
C'junty, New Brunswick). Not C. sparsiftora Steud. 1841. Carex adusia var. sparsiftora I,. H. Bailey, Cat. N. Am. Car. 2, name only. 1884. (Based on C.
albolulescens var. sparsiftora Olney.) Carex jotnea var. perplexa I,. II Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 27. 1889. (As to synonymy, in
large part; not as to type.) Carex foenea var. s parsiflora Hov/e. Ann. Rep. N. Y. State Mus. 48: 142. IS97. -(*«se<i on &t'
' alboticttixens-'m.T-.-sparsiflora 01ney.>' Carex foenea var. aenea Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzcnreich 4™: 205. 1909. -{Based on C. aenea
Fernald:)*
Cespitose,' *he-re©tstocks very-short, black, fibrillose, the culms 3-12 dm. high, slender, nodding, exceeding the leaves, obtusely triangular and smooth on the angles except immediately beneath the head, brownish at base and clothed with the dried-up short-bladed leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades 3-6 to a fertile culm, on the lower third to half, but not bunched, the blades ascending, weak, flat, light-green, 1-3 dm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, roughened towards the ape., the sheaths tight, green-and-whitemottled dorsally, thin-hyaline ventrally, slightly yellowish-tinged and concave at mouth, short-prolonged beyond base of blade and continuous with ligiile; sterile shoots with several similar leaves; spikes 4 tw 10, in a flexuous moniliform inflorescence 3.5-7 cm. long, 1 cm. thick or less, all separate or (he upper 2 or 3 approximate, oblong or oblong-obovoid, g>'naecandrous, 7-25 mm. long, 5-7 mm. wide, rounded at apex, clavate at base, the perigynia numerous, appressed-ascending; lower one or two bracts short-cu.spidate, the upper scale-like; scales ovate, acute or short-acuminate, dull-brown or yellowish-brown with 3-nerved green center and narrow hyaline margins, nearly as wide and as long as perigynia and nearly £oncealing them; perigynia concavo-convex, ovate, the body widest at base, 4-5 mm. long, 2.25'-2 mm. wide, membranaceous, dull-green, soon brownish, margined to base, serrulate to middle, severalnerved dorsally, nerveless ventrally or several-nerved at base or occasionally to apex, shortstipitate, rounded at base, tapering at apex into a conspicuous beak about half the length of the body, flat, serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, reddish-brown-tipped, bidentate, the margins of the orifice light-reddish-brown-tinged; achenes lenticular, broadly oval, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, substipitate, apiculate, dull, yellowish-brown; style slender, straight, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, light-reddish-brown, slender, long.
TvPB LOCAUITV: Kent County, New Brunswick (/. Fowler).
■Distribution: Dry places, northern Labrador to Connecticut, and westward to British Columbia and Yukon. (Specimens examined from northern Labrador, Newfoundland, Quebec^ **~-Ti*e Edward -Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire. Vermont, Massa; ^tts, Connecticut, New York, Ontario, Michigap, Wisconsin, lyiinnesota. South Dakota!
/nitoba, Alberta, Montana, British Columbia, Yukon.)

Carex foenea is a species of flowering plant in the family Cyperaceae, native from subarctic America to the northern United States. It was first described by Carl Ludwig Willdenow in 1809.

Some sources regard Carex foenea as a synonym of Carex siccata, others treat it as a full species.